


oh, the end of infinity

by MissSugarPlum



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuban Lance (Voltron), Existential Angst, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Hunk (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Lance also has Issues, Matt has issues, Not beta-read, Platonic Cuddling, allusions to kuron/clone theory, ambiguous klance (in that it can be read as friendship no sweat), hints of matt/shiro if you're willing to tilt your head sideways and squint real hard, rated t for teens who curse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 18:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSugarPlum/pseuds/MissSugarPlum
Summary: Matt can’t sleep.It’s not like this is a new occurrence. Sleep has been evading him for years now, and he can’t even remember what a proper restful night feels like.He sometimes thinks of when he was still at the Garrison, how he used to think he knew what stress was, how he used to bemoan the pressure from instructors, the rigorous training, the way he could only ever seem to get no more than six hours of sleep a night, and he yearns for the simplicity ofback then.Past-Matt didn’t know how good he had it.-x-[Matt adjusts to being in the Castle of Lions.]





	oh, the end of infinity

**Author's Note:**

> s4 gave me a lot of feelings. not all of them were great (most of them were not), but i have A Lot of Feelings about matt holt, he is precious and needs a hug
> 
> (also i only watched that accursed season once, so forgive any sort of continuity issues bc watching any of that again is Not Worth It)
> 
> like it says on the tin, you can read the klance as a strong friendship if the romantic ship isn't your jam, and there's only very brief hints of mattashi (sidenote: why is shatt the single worst ship name in the world, i refuse to use it ever), so take that as you will
> 
> this started out as a silly little oneshot based on [this tumblr post](http://klancept.tumblr.com/post/166393569772/hc-lance-wasnt-jealous-of-matt-trying-to-steal) and it very quickly got crazy out of hand, seriously this stupid thing is so long TAKE THIS MONSTROSITY AWAY FROM ME
> 
> all blame goes to [hannah](http://cummandercold.tumblr.com) for dragging me down into this trash heap fandom, ily babe you're the greatest<3
> 
> (title from Last of the Real Ones by Fall Out Boy)

-x-

 

“Don’t.”

 

Matt startles, dragging his mind away from the far-off place it had been roaming. He glances around to see who had spoken, and finds his gaze locking on the guy who had been giving him the stinkeye during their introduction yesterday—Lars, he’s pretty sure, but maybe it’s Landon? He’s terrible with names, and space and aliens and all the different vernaculars of all the different species in the universe have only made that particular characteristic worse.

 

“Uh.” He blinks, completely nonplussed and sure that it shows. “Don’t… what?”

 

Lance—that’s his name, Lance, not Lars, _Christ_ —crosses his arms, mouth pressed down into the flattest, most unimpressed line Matt has ever seen outside a commanding officer or his mother. “Allura.”

 

Matt feels his cheeks and the tips of his ears heat with a splotchy flush, and he wills his eyes to not even flicker toward where the radiant princess is sitting with her advisor. “What about her?” he asks. His arms cross almost of their own volition—he can’t help but feel defensive, in this unfamiliar-looking place with these familiar-looking people but so, _so_ far out of his comfort zone, his understanding of the universe thrown askance for the second time in as many years, and he hates this, _hates_ feeling like anything less than the person he’s had to work so tirelessly to become, helpless prisoner to wild insurgent to rebel officer, and he resents the hell out of Lance, this _kid_ , for reducing him to this state with less than a handful of words.

 

Lance’s eyes narrow. “Don’t play dumb, you know exactly what I’m talking about.” He points an accusatory finger into Matt’s chest, emphasizing his statement sharply.

 

“I don’t…” Matt clears his throat, shakes his head, resists the urge to grab Lance’s finger and bend it back until it _breaks_. “That’s not any of your business,” he says bitingly, but his voice isn’t quite as firm as he wants it to be, off-kilter as he is here.

 

Lance’s stare doesn’t waver, searching, assessing, judging. Matt doesn’t know what he could possibly be looking for, or what he sees, but he absolutely refuses to be cowed. He’s pretty sure he could take this beanpole in a fight, if it came down to it.

 

“How do you feel about face masks?” is what Lance says next. Matt falters, completely derailed by the non-sequitur.

 

“I… _what?_ ”

 

Lance crowds in close, tapping his fingers restlessly against his own arm. Matt leans away in response, but doesn’t step back. It would feel too much like a concession, defeat, and he’s always been a sore loser. “How do you feel about face masks?” Lance repeats casually, like this is a normal, everyday occurrence for him—and hell, maybe it is, how would he know?

 

Matt has no idea what to make of this guy anymore, but—“Dude, personal space much?” The itch in his fingers is strong, and he ruthlessly represses the twitch until it fades to an uncomfortable buzz in the back of his mind, the barest of tingles at the base of his wrists.

 

Lance ignores the pointed question, peering intently at the bridge of his nose. “Those blackheads are disgusting, ugh, your poor pores,” he says almost cheerily. “C’mon, I’ve got something that’ll help.” He draws back from Matt, _finally_ , and turns to leave the lounge, pausing and raising an eyebrow when Matt doesn’t immediately join him. “Let’s go, Mattie-Matt, chop chop, day’s a-wastin’!”

 

Matt’s kind of pissed off, a little suspicious, but mostly he’s just bewildered and, despite himself, horrifically fascinated by this asshole. After a brief moment of deliberation, he follows, because really, what else is he going to do? “Call me Mattie-Matt again and I’ll pound your face in,” he threatens mildly when he falls into step with Lance.

 

Lance only laughs in response and tugs him along.

 

-x-

 

“What, exactly,  is this supposed to do?”

 

“It’s a cleanser. It’ll hydrate your skin, remove the excess oils—and your face is super oily, really, no offense—and pull out impurities like blackheads so your pores look nicer. And stop _poking at it_ , you’ll ruin it before it even works its magic!”

 

“But it’s itchy.”

 

“You’re itchy.”

 

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

 

“Your _face_ doesn’t make any sense, and that is why we’re here. Hands away, Holt, c’mon, it’s only eight more doboshes.”

 

Matt doesn’t even know what a dobosh _is_. He huffs, crossing his arms. “This is ridiculous,” he mutters, and he tells himself his voice is _not_ petulant, because he’s twenty-three and an officer of the rebellion, damnit, he’s not a _child_.

 

Lance rolls his eyes, sitting back in his beanbag-looking chair and apparently completely at ease with the nonsense on his own face. “You and your skin will thank me for this, trust me.”

 

“I’m not sure _thank_ is the right word.”

 

“Don’t worry, you’ll see the light soon enough.” Lance waves a dismissive hand, then abruptly drops it into his lap as the lines of his face edge into the austerity from before. “Look, I know you’re new around here, and you probably didn’t mean anything by it—”

 

“Oh god,” Matt can’t help but interrupt, rolling his eyes, “is this the part where you try and defend the Princess’s honor?”

 

Lance snorts inelegantly. “Believe me, Allura’d have no problem kicking your ass from here to Wozblay and back all on her own, if she wanted to.”

 

Matt doesn’t even remotely know where Wozblay might be, which really just highlights Lance’s words if he thinks about it. He tries not to.

 

“So what is this?” Matt raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “You already called dibs, is that it?”

 

Lance actually looks pretty disgusted at that—which, hey, point to him. Matt’d had him kind of pegged as one of those stereotypical jock types, brazenly flirty and a complete tool, and he’s not really disappointed to see that he might be wrong. “No way, _José_. My _Mamá_ would kick my ass for even thinking that, not to mention my _three sisters_.” He pauses at that, squeezing his eyes shut tight with a sharp shake of his head, fingers clenching and unclenching around air, and Matt has felt it often enough in himself that he can recognize the rolling waves of _homesickness_ radiating from him.

 

A pang of sympathy hits low and hard in his chest. At least he’s got Pidge now, he thinks with a faint feeling of guilt and a larger one of fear, and he pushes _that_ giant mess of emotions away into the farthest corners of his mind before he falls entirely apart.

 

“But no,” Lance continues belatedly, either oblivious to Matt’s spiralling thoughts or ignoring them, “this isn’t about me—it’s not even about Allura and me, because… just, no.”

 

He falls silent for a beat, two. Matt waits him out. He’s got an excitable kid sister, he can do this all day.

 

Although the face mask thing still itches.

 

“How much did Pidge tell you? About Allura and Coran?” Lance asks, and Matt’s almost used to these seemingly random changes of topic from him now. It’s only been a couple of days, too. Progress.

 

“Uh.” Admittedly, it hadn’t been much. “Allura’s a princess, and the Blue Paladin, and Coran is her advisor and takes care of the ship?”

 

“Well, you’re not wrong. Just a little under-informed.” Lance sighs. “They’re the last of the Alteans.”

 

Matt has the brief thought that _the last of the Alteans_ sounds like a YA dystopian novel he’d absolutely read before the meaning of the words sinks in. “Wait—Alteans, as in, like, the planet Zarkon destroyed at the start of the war? _Ten thousand_ years ago?” He’s been in space for years at this point, after all. He knows most of the stories by now.

 

“Yep. King Alfor was Allura’s dad.”

 

“What…“ Matt doesn’t even know what to say to that. How is he supposed to react to the news that his little sister’s gorgeous teammate and the person closest to her, two of his new allies, are the very last of a species annihilated by a genocidal megalomaniac _millennia_ before his existence was even a thought thrown out into the universe?

 

He’s pretty sure Hallmark doesn’t have anything close to a card for that.

 

There are so many thoughts swirling around in Matt’s brain, he doesn’t even know what he wants to ask first. “How the hell did they survive this long?” is what eventually comes out, and Matt figures it’s as good a place to start as any.

 

“There’s a bunch of cryopods in the medbay that we use for healing,” Lance answers with a wry twist to his lips. “The King put them both in suspended animation—we woke them up, when Blue first took us here from Earth.” His smile turns small and fond at whatever memory he’s thinking of.

 

“That’s…” Matt blows out a huge breath. “Wow. That must’ve been—rough.”

 

“I know, right? We used to have an AI here on the ship; it was uploaded with all of Alfor’s thoughts and memories, so at least they weren’t totally alone, y’know? But it got corrupted because of this Galra crystal from when the castle got invaded by this total asshat Sendak—long story, seriously, don’t ask—and Allura had to destroy him. Uh, it. Her dad’s AI.”

 

Matt stares at Lance, who looks utterly unconcerned with everything he just dumped on Matt. “Holy shit,” he breathes out. That feeling of sick fascination is back—how much must Allura and Coran have gone through, waking up so alone and missing everything and everyone they had known and loved, barring each other?

 

And on that note, just how much has this team gone through since getting thrust into this war? How much has _Pidge_ gone through?

 

Matt has done a lot of terrible things since his impromptu voyage into the great unknown, and has had a lot of terrible things done to him, but nothing makes him want to retch more than the knowledge that his little sister has had to experience war, and all the atrocities and trauma that accompanies it, without him by her side.

 

She’s—Christ, she’s only _fifteen_.

 

(And Matt’s already broken, splintered into tiny pieces that are bare fragments of the person he used to be, but he breaks more and more every time he lets himself think about the bright-eyed girl he’d left behind and how much she’s grown since then, everything she’s had to endure, everything he’s _missed_.)

 

“Yeah.” Lance cocks his head to one side, blue eyes bright and alight on Matt’s face, nodding solemnly at the faint horror Matt knows is displayed there. “We’re all kinda fucked up here, Allura more than most.” Lance’s eyes widen, and he holds his hands out in defense, hastening to add, “Not that I’m saying she’s not strong, because she is, there’s no way _I_ could’ve dealt with everything she has and not gone completely batshit insane.”

 

“Sounds like _all_ of you should be batshit insane by now,” Matt comments idly, and Lance laughs, loudly but without much humor.

 

“True.” He sighs again, reaching up to ruffle his hair in what Matt has come to recognize as a nervous tick, having seen him do it several times already, almost unconsciously. “And trust me, I know what you’re thinking when it comes to Allura—”

 

“Because you’re so all-knowing, are you?” Matt mutters, unable to help the sarcastic remark. He always did have trouble keeping his mouth shut.

 

He likes to think he’s gotten more of a handle on it since the beginning of his time spent in space with aliens that have _literally threatened to kill him_ for any sort of backtalk, but he knows he’d be lying to everyone as well as himself. The sass is as much a part of him as the blood pumping through his veins, as essential to him as every indrawn breath to his lungs.

 

“—because I’ve been there, I was kind of the same way when I first met her,” Lance finishes without missing a beat, though his lips do quirk crookedly in response to Matt’s little barb. “But… look, Allura is one of my best friends now, okay, and I know she’d murder me if she knew I was doing this, even though she won’t ever say anything herself—she’s way too diplomatic for that.” He rolls his eyes, smile soft and fond. “But believe me, this whole lovesick schtick is just gonna be a giant waste of your time, and hers.”

 

Matt scowls a bit, but the affront he’s feeling is tempered both by Lance’s earnestly determined expression and the information he’s still trying to process, information he knows is just barely the tip of the iceberg. “It’s not like I can just turn it off, I didn’t ask for this—infatuation. She’s just… really friggin’ incredible, y’know?”

 

“Oh, I know. Allura is the literal embodiment of beauty and grace and everything pure in the world, and she deserves to hear it _all the time_.” Lance winks absurdly, startling a laugh out of Matt. “But maybe tone down the goofy heart eyes a little? And just try being her friend. She needs more of those, and I’m willing to bet you do, too.”

 

Matt is once again struck speechless, unable to speak around the colossal lump in his throat that feels like everything he’s bottled up since that fateful day on Kerberos. He opens his mouth to try anyway, even though he has no idea what will end up coming out, when a soft _ding_ chimes from the direction of Lance’s bed.

 

_“Hey sharpshooter, you there?”_

 

Lance’s eyes bulge almost comically, and he’s up and out of his lazy sprawl in a flash, insistently shoving Matt toward the door. “Okay, it’s been long enough by now, go wash that mask off—gently though, okay, don’t try to scrub your entire face off or anything or you’ll completely ruin everything we just did—and try not to touch your face so much, alright, your skin is really oily, we talked about this already, and you are _not helping_ with all the face-touching—go, go, go, what are you still doing in here, _vámonos_!”

 

The door opens with a hiss and Matt is unceremoniously shoved out. He turns back to Lance, baffled by his bizarre turn of behavior, and blinks as he sees Lance dive for something underneath his pillow. “What the—?”

 

“Seriously, go wash that mask off, buh-bye!” Lance practically shouts, then turns away from Matt in a clear dismissal, hunching his shoulders in and cradling the small device in his hands. “Mullet-brain! It’s been like twelve quintants since I’ve heard from you, what the _cheese_ —”

 

The door closes before Matt can hear anything else, and he stands in front of it for a long moment, completely confused at what just happened. He eventually shakes it off, heading for one of the bathrooms he’s pretty sure is right around the corner from here—seriously, this ship is _massive_ , it’ll take him forever to learn his way around—more than eager to finally get this crap off his face.

 

Ten minutes later, he grudgingly admits to himself that his skin has never felt better, like his face can finally _breathe_ after being congested for so long, and he resolves to never, _ever_ tell Lance.

 

-x-

 

“Who pissed in your space peas?” Pidge asks absently when he finds her a short time later, deep in the Green Lion’s underbelly and working on… something, he’s not entirely sure what.

 

Matt looks up at where she’s hanging upside down from one leg, bracing the other against a panel and pushing herself to reach a mass of tangled-up wires and cables, wire stripper held between her teeth as both hands work dexterously at the bundle, and he has to swallow back the instinctive urge to shout, has to stop himself from reaching up to pull her to safety, has to push down the fear that threatens to engulf him every time he allows himself to think about it.

 

His little sister is whip-smart, a total badass, the Green Paladin of Voltron and one of the destined defenders of the universe. Matt couldn’t be prouder or more in awe.

 

And it completely _terrifies_ him.

 

“I ran into Lance,” he answers instead of giving voice to the panic screaming inside him. “He talked me into one of his face… things. Somehow. I don’t even know.”

 

Pidge snorts and spits the wire strippers down into one hand. “He’s disturbingly charismatic like that—if you’re not careful, he’ll be giving you manis and pedis next.”

 

“You’re fucking with me.”

 

“I’m really not. We’ve all been subjected to his beauty routine at least once.” Pidge grunts, squints her eyes, and pushes so her leg’s fully extended, almost shaking from the strain and reaching to grasp at another cable with the tips of her outstretched fingers. “I think it’s something he used to do with his sisters—he really misses his family, and it’s his way of holding on to Earth, kind of.”

 

“Makes sense,” Matt says, thinking about the tightness around Lance’s eyes when he mentioned his mother, his sisters, and then, unable to help himself: “D’you need any help with that?”

 

“Nah, I’ve almost got it, thanks.” Pidge grins lopsidedly at him, eyes glinting behind her glasses— _his_ glasses, Christ, he still doesn’t know how to deal with that information—and Matt grins back, helpless against her obvious _joy_ at having him there with her.

 

It helps combat the fear, just a little.

 

“What’s up?” she asks him after a moment, only the sounds of her tinkering filling the silence.

 

“Nothing, really,” Matt says, shrugging. “Just wanted to see what my favorite little sister was up to.”

 

Pidge rolls her eyes. “Your _only_ little sister,” she grumbles, like she does every time Matt trots out that overtired joke. Both of them still smile at it, though, so Matt will continue to use it, far past the point of it being actually funny. “Just trying to up the defenses on Green—stealth’s great and all, a total lifesaver, but I’d like a little more protection for when that stops being an option.”

 

“Smart,” Matt observes, and Pidge nods distractedly.

 

“She’ll never have armor like Yellow—that thing is a _beast_ , you should have Hunk show you sometime. But she’s as safe as I can make her, for now.”

 

“From what you and everyone else has said, seems like that’s pretty damn safe, kiddo.” Matt can’t help the pride shining through his tone.

 

Pidge’s smile is smaller this time, bashful in the wake of Matt’s honest praise, but no less vibrant. Her eyes shine and then she blinks, her smile taking on a mischievous slant. “Turns out the only motivation I needed was having half my family abducted by aliens. Who knew?”

 

Matt chokes on a laugh, and he’s relieved that it doesn’t expose the wild hysteria that statement evokes deep in his chest. “Who knew,” he wheezes.

 

Pidge leans back, runs a critical eye over her work, and nods, satisfied. She hops down from her perch in one smooth motion, wobbling a little on the landing, and the only reason Matt doesn’t have a heart attack is because he grew inured to his baby sister jumping off of tall things—stools, the top shelf of her bookcase, trees, the second story balcony of their house—right around the time she learned how to walk.

 

She sidles up to him, leaning against his arm in a not-so-subtle ploy for a hug, and Matt wastes no time in throwing that arm around her and pulling her in tight. He missed this—not just Pidge, of course, though he missed her and his father and his mother and even their dog so much it physically _ached_ most days—missed the quiet pleasure of human interaction: the gentle press of a hug, a hand on his shoulder, fingers sifting through his hair, even a simple fistbump. Most alien species, he’s found, aren’t quite so tactile as humans tend to be, and it’s something he’s missed fiercely.

 

He presses his face into the rat’s nest that is Pidge’s hair, scrunching his eyes shut and forcing himself to breathe evenly, in through his nose and out through his mouth, over and over in an attempt to calm his heart from its sudden jackrabbit pace, and very carefully does not think of an empty grave among thousands and thousands, of Pidge’s voice whispering _“I thought I’d lost you for good,”_ rough and breaking and chock full of the tears she couldn’t choke back.

 

Pidge grasps him back just as desperately, shoulders shaking slightly and nose pressed firmly into his chest, which loosens the stronghold on his lungs, just barely but enough for his breath to come that much easier.

 

They stay that way for a long time.

 

-x-

 

Matt’s breath punches out of him as a blow lands directly into his solar plexus. He brings his staff around in a sweeping arc underneath his opponent’s guard, grunting with the force of his exertion, and smashes it into their side with a reverberating _clang_ that he feels all the way down to his toes.

 

The gladiator finally drops, and Matt steps back with a relieved sigh. “End training sequence!” he calls out, and the gladiator’s limbs go limp just as it’s starting to pick itself up again. Matt lets himself collapse onto the ground, fingers still curled loosely around his staff because he can’t bear to let go, not yet. He relishes the burn in his muscles, the sweat gathered at his temples and the back of his neck, the trembling of his legs and the strain of each inhale and exhale, and the savage call of violence burns away at him, like a thirst he’ll never be able to satiate.

 

A slow clap brings his head up, and he watches with narrowed eyes as Lance approaches from the doorway, stepping deftly around the unresponsive training bot. “Impressive,” Lance says, and while it sounds somewhat mocking in tone, Matt can see the gleam in his eyes that looks something like intrigue and respect.

 

“Yeah, well.” Matt clears his throat, clutches his staff tighter until his fingers start to ache with it. “In the rebellion, you either get good or you get dead.”

 

“Doesn’t seem to leave a lot of room for error,” Lance comments, and then before Matt can reply—not that he knows what he would even say, because it’s war, when is there ever room for error? Error only ever results in death; he’s seen that lesson learned the hard way one too many times—“Your skin looks great, by the way. Can’t tell if it’s because of my amazing help or that nice sheen of sweat you’ve got goin’ on there.”

 

“Pretty sure it’s _not_ the sweat,” Matt deadpans, and Lance shakes his head, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

 

“Don’t underestimate the power of a good workout,” he says with an easy grin. “Nobody looks as good as they do after putting genuine effort into something. Endorphins are nature’s beauty supplies, remember that.”

 

“…If you say so,” Matt says dubiously, but he can’t help his lips from twitching up into an answering grin.

 

“I sure do.” Lance rises up to his toes, holds it for a moment and then rocks back down onto his heels. “So… why’re you beating up one of our gladiators? I refuse to accept that you’re doing this just for fun, there’s no way.”

 

“Just getting in some basic training,” Matt says, swiping his sweaty bangs out of his face. Lance eyes him, following his fingers as if he can see them trailing smears of oil and dirt and grime, but says nothing, of which Matt is glad—he’s not really looking for a lecture on hygiene and self-care and basic beauty maintenance today. “Don’t want to get rusty.”

 

“ _Dios mío_ , you are just like him,” Lance mutters. Matt furrows his brows in a question, but Lance just brushes him off. “Want a partner?” he asks next, blindsiding Matt.

 

“Um,” he says eloquently, “what?”

 

It’s not the first time he’s been caught unawares by something Lance has said, and he has a feeling it’s nowhere near the last.

 

Lance pulls his hands out of his pockets and slaps them decisively on his thighs. “Come on, let’s do a round together, I could use the practice.” He holds out a hand entreatingly.

 

Matt stares up at him a second more, then thinks to himself _what the hell_ with a mental shrug and shifts his staff to one hand, reaching the other up to take Lance’s and rising fluidly. “What did you have in mind?” He glances over Lance’s casual stance, the slim jeans and oversized jacket and empty hands. “Do you even have a weapon?”

 

Lance reaches into his jacket in response, pulling out what Matt recognizes as a bayard, though of course it’s red, unlike Pidge’s green. He shrugs out of the jacket, tossing it lazily toward the door, then holds his bayard up expectantly. It melts smoothly into the form of a sniper rifle. “I think I’m set,” he says with another grin.

 

Matt admires the clean lines of the gun, all sharp and sleek and dangerous, and he grins back, baring his teeth the way he’s learned to, an imitation of Galra soldiers much bigger than he and with much sharper bites. He twists his staff in a flourish—he may be showing off, just a little bit, but he can’t help himself, and Lance doesn’t call him out on his showboating. “Alright, then.”

 

Lance smirks, and his fingers flex on the rifle in anticipation. “Begin training sequence, level ten!”

 

Matt only has time for a brief yelp of surprise—the highest he’s gotten so far is level _six_ , and only just, he can’t imagine how difficult level _ten_ is going to be, no matter if he’s with a partner—before the gladiator from before is up and rushing him and another dozen or so bots pop up from the panels in the floor.

 

The next however many minutes fly by in the best kind of blur. Matt parries blows and returns thrusts as quickly as he can make himself move, and for every bot he beats away, two more immediately take its place. He fends off an incoming attack from his side and sees, too late, another bot using his distraction to aim for his head. He winces internally, knowing there’s no way he can safely dodge one without getting hit by the other, but a bright blast _whoosh_ es past him and hits one of the bots, right smack in the middle of its head.

 

It drops instantly, and Matt chances a glance over his shoulder as he lets his momentum carry his staff forward and crash into the other bot. Lance’s rifle is hiked up and held securely against the crook of one arm, eyes narrowed and fierce as he fires, shot after shot after incapacitating shot without pause, gaze flicking from opponent to opponent in rapid succession. He doesn’t always make the headshot, but he gets at least one hit on every single target that enters his scope of vision.

 

It’s some of the most impressively deadly accuracy Matt has ever seen. Considering how much battle he’s seen in the last couple of years, he feels like that says a lot.

 

As he watches, the gladiator approaches from Lance’s blind spot, right behind his shoulder, as he focuses on the bots swarming between him and Matt; Matt shouts “Behind—!” and Lance is already in motion, whirling around and slamming the butt of his rifle into the gladiator’s face, swinging the barrel around not unlike a baseball bat into another advancing bot in the next second.

 

“On your six!” Lance shouts to him, eyes burning brightly, and Matt heeds him without thought, twisting and lashing out with a series of debilitating blows. They continue to fight in tandem, working together nearly seamlessly and only stumbling a few times—Matt because he’s not as used to fighting alongside anyone else, having carried out mostly solo missions in the past, and Lance because the length of Matt’s staff appears to catch him off guard once or twice, almost as if he’s used to fighting next to someone with a much shorter weapon, Matt thinks. But they make it work, and one by one their opponents drop without getting back up.

 

The last of the bots finally falls. Lance yells _“End training sequence!”_ in a hoarse shout, gasping for breath, and Matt slumps as he greedily gulps in his own supply of air, loosening his grip and letting his staff fall with a noisy clatter. Lance relaxes his own stance, his rifle losing its shape and reverting back to its inert state as he too drops his weapon to the ground.

 

They spend a couple of minutes getting their breathing under control, coming down from the high of an adrenaline-fueled battle—even if it was just a training exercise, Matt feels as though he’s been out on the front lines—and then Matt spins around to face Lance, pointing a finger at him in a reversed mimicry of just a few days before. “Where did you learn to _shoot_ like that?!” he nearly shrieks, and Lance jumps about a foot in the air, clearly not expecting his outburst.

 

“Uh, my oldest sister, Jackie—she’s a Marine,” he explains, and his spine straightens a little with pride as he continues: “She taught me after she finished up with boot camp, we used to practice shooting old soup cans together on the beach.”

 

“Your eye is incredible,” Matt says honestly, still completely in awe—he gives credit where credit is due, always has, and Lance’s skill is _extraordinary_. He never would have guessed, which just makes it all the more remarkable. “I can’t imagine how good your sister is, if you’re this good and she taught _you_ , holy crap.”

 

“She’s pretty awesome,” Lance agrees with a nod, completely bypassing Matt’s praise for himself. His smile is wistful and bittersweet, both longing and a sad acceptance plain to see on his face.

 

“Seriously though,” Matt reiterates, and if the enthusiasm in his voice is dialed up a notch, grin a little wider than normal, it’s only to distract Lance from the terrible yearning Matt is sure he feels. “That was amazing!”

 

Lance’s eyes crinkle at the edges at that, and his smile turns a little more real. “It was pretty cool, wasn’t it?”

 

“You’re underselling it, man, we kicked _ass_.” Matt punches him lightly in the arm, beaming with the bone-weary accomplishment of an exceedingly punishing workout—two, actually. He’ll be sore tomorrow, he's sure of it, but he hardly cares now, victory singing through his veins and making him feel oh-so- _alive_. “We make a pretty good team, don’t we?”

 

Something falters briefly in Lance’s expression, a flicker of something indiscernible, there and gone again so quickly Matt can’t even be sure he saw anything. “We sure do,” he says in a strange tone, and before Matt can even react he’s a sudden whirlwind of motion, grinning sunnily. “And this was super fun, yeah? We absolutely need to do it again sometime, you are badass and you are _so_ right, we kicked some major butt! I think we could even go up another couple of training levels if we really try, it’s easier once you get used to their patterns, and you're right, we work pretty awesome together, who knew? But I’m gonna—” he stoops to grab at his jacket without breaking his stride for the door; “—I’m gonna get going, okay, I seriously _reek_ , training may be good for my body but it is _not_ great for my hair, it is definitely time for a shower and some good old-fashioned TLC, seeyoulaterbye!”

 

And with a flailing wave and a brief hand motion that looks something like a _finger gun_ , of all things, he’s gone.

 

Matt stands stock-still for a long minute, blinking at the ringing silence left in Lance’s wake. He tries for another solid minute to make sense of what just happened, fails, and decides to follow Lance’s lead and heads in the direction of the nearest bathroom, intent on taking a nice, long, _hot_ bath.

 

He’ll figure out what Lance’s deal is—and why Matt feels vaguely guilty at eliciting that hollow look in Lance’s eye with nothing more than an innocent line about teamwork (because he’s not stupid, okay, he knows the difference between correlation and causation, and Lance’s rapid retreat is one hundred percent the result of what he said and it screams _you did this_ at Matt in booming boldface)—he’ll figure it all out later.

 

Preferably tomorrow.

 

-x-

 

He doesn't see too much of Lance over the next few days. He doesn't necessarily think that Lance is avoiding him, per se, but—

 

He thinks Lance is kind of avoiding him.

 

Not that he… minds? At least, not too much—it’s not like he and Lance are attached at the hip, or anything. Christ, he’s only just _met_ the kid.

 

He just can’t get that awful, bleak look of Lance’s out of his head, and he can’t help but feel responsible for it: for the way Lance has almost seemed to pull back not just from him, but from everyone else as well; for the strange and somber silence that’s permeated the Castle of Lions and its inhabitants ever since.

 

“Don’t worry, it’s not your fault,” Hunk—who has very kindly not held anything against Matt for calling him _Hank_ at first—reassures him one evening (or at least, what passes as evening when they’re hurtling through the endless void that is _space_ and time is but the merest of manmade constructs) when they’re the only two in the kitchen, chopping blithely away at a neon purple _something_. Matt’s not quite sure what it is—some sort of alien root or vegetable, possibly?—and he’s not so sure he wants to find out, much less eat it.

 

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Hunk in the kitchen, because Hunk’s food is the best tasting stuff he’s had of anywhere in space, and maybe even before then. He’s just not so sure about food that’s such a heinously radioactive level of bright that it leaves afterimages pressed into his retinas long after he stops looking at it.

 

“Now if only I could believe that,” Matt mutters sarcastically, attempting to stab his straw-thing into the pouch-thing with extreme prejudice. He subsides after another moment, sighing irritably. He hasn’t even _seen_ anything resembling a juice pouch in years, he’s sure, and these alien counterparts are much more durable than the Capri Sun packets of his youth.

 

Hunk sets down his knife and the purple tuber (or maybe carrot—or a legume, perhaps? Who really knows?) gently, reaching for the hydration pouch and deftly spearing the straw into the top. He offers it back to Matt, who takes it with a grateful smile and slurps deeply.

 

“Really, it’s not you,” Hunk continues after picking up the knife again. “We just all miss Keith, and it hits some of us harder than others, sometimes. He and Lance used to be training buddies, before he left for the Blade.”

 

Matt doesn’t know too much about Keith, aside from the miniscule amount he knew previous to the Kerberos mission (and by miniscule he means truly _microscopic_ )—all Pidge was really willing to say about him was _he used to be part of Voltron, and now he’s not_ with the same strain of pain on her face that she had when they had very briefly talked of their father, and Matt hasn’t had the heart to dig at either of those wounds quite yet.

 

“Keith was… one of the Paladins with you, right?” he asks delicately. “He was part of Voltron?”

 

Hunk smiles, but the look sits morosely on his face. “He was the Red Paladin, yeah.”

 

He knows Lance is the Red Paladin, so it stands to reason that—“Lance… what, replaced him?”

 

“No—well, kind of?” Hunk scratches at his nose, leaving a smudge of luminous purple behind. Matt debates telling him but ultimately decides against it, only because he’s morbidly curious to see how long it’ll be before anyone—okay, before _Pidge_ —will eventually notice. He’s willing to bet it’ll take a while. “But only because Keith replaced Shiro as the Black Paladin first, and Allura didn’t really gel with Red too well, so she took Lance’s place as the Blue Paladin, and Lance moved to Red. Pidge calls it the ‘Right Side Remix,’ because Red and Blue are both on the right side of Voltron—she’s a weirdo like that.”

 

Matt would laugh, because that’s absolutely something Pidge would do, except he’s kind of stuck on another part of that story. “ _Replaced_ Shiro? What happened to Shiro?”

 

Hunk falters, and he carefully sets his knife and the maybe-vegetable aside once more. “You didn’t… Shiro didn’t tell you?”

 

Matt’s fingers spasm around his pouch, and water squirts up everywhere. “Um,” he says, wrinkling his nose at his dripping bangs and willing his voice not to shake. “Not really, no—tell me what?”

 

“He—well, he disappeared,” Hunk says simply, and Matt appreciates, in some faraway corner of his mind that’s still somehow functioning, his ability to be so matter-of-fact with Matt. He _hates_ when people attempt to beat around the bush; it only serves to ratchet his anxiety up another few notches. “It was right after our huge fight against Zarkon. He just vanished, right out of the Black Lion! We had _no_ idea what happened, he was just— _poof!_ Gone. For—oh, what’s eight phoebs in Earth time—a good six months, at least? He escaped again, somehow. We haven’t really… asked for details. He’s been through so much, we didn’t want to add on any stress, you know? Guy doesn’t get enough sleep as it is.”

 

Matt can’t think past the roaring in his ears. He’d heard all the stories of the famed-and-feared Champion, had known it was Shiro almost as soon as the whispers had begun to spring up in the wake of his brutal and bloody successes. He’d carefully pieced together every scrap of every potentially-but-undoubtedly-not-exaggerated story he’d ever heard in all the seedy corners of whatever star system he’d happened to find himself in, had been able to make a probably-very-accurate educated guess about just what exactly Shiro had been subjected to after he’d forcefully saved Matt from the Arena, and the very _thought_ of him having to go through any modicum of that horror again makes bile rise threateningly high in Matt’s throat.

 

How many times has he come close to losing Shiro, without even knowing?

 

Hunk clears his throat uncomfortably, blinking hard like he’s trying to stave off tears. “I really thought Shiro would’ve told you,” he says faux-casually, in an obvious attempt to distance them from the weight of the topic.

 

“Me too,” Matt murmurs emotionlessly, and he tries not to think about the yawning distance that he’s noticed has expanded between him and his… well. They’re not really crewmates anymore, are they?

 

He’s not too sure _what_ they are anymore.

 

Hunk hums out a low sound, nervous and reassuring and understanding all in one, and pulls the hopefully-not-actually-radioactive _thing_ toward himself again. “Dinner should be ready in about half a varga.”

 

“Okay seriously, what the _fuck_ is a varga?”

 

-x-

 

Matt can’t sleep.

 

It’s not like this is a new occurrence. Sleep has been evading him for years now, and he can’t even remember what a proper restful night feels like.

 

He sometimes thinks of when he was still at the Garrison, how he used to think he knew what stress was, how he used to bemoan the pressure from instructors, the rigorous training, the way he could only ever seem to get no more than six hours of sleep a night, and he yearns for the simplicity of _back then_.

 

Past-Matt didn’t know how good he had it.

 

Present-Matt just wants more than three hours of uninterrupted shuteye.

 

He’s taken to wandering the castleship deep into the night-cycle when everyone else is probably well into their third or fourth phase of REM sleep, exploring every nook and cranny he can get into without assistance and expanding his mental map of his temporary (permanent? He’s never asked, and he’s not so sure he wants to have that conversation, not even with Pidge) new home. He occasionally stumbles across something intriguing—a large broom-closet-looking room that he’s sure Pidge has requisitioned for storing the mountain of junk she’s taken to hoarding; a wide empty space that looks like it might’ve been a ballroom at some point, three corners of it stuffed with a bunch of miscellaneous alien electronic odds and ends that he recognizes from Hunk’s various tinkerings; four different gym-type rooms, all markedly smaller than the main training room they all utilize but at least two of them bearing the evidence of at least semi-regular use in the form of empty hydration pouches strewn about, towels heaped haphazardly on the floor, and what he’s sure is some alien equivalent of an iPod sitting abandoned on one bench; a humongous library filled with books upon books that Matt instinctively knows he’d never even come close to making a dent in, even if he read a new one every single day for the next fifty years; a side door from said library that leads to an upside-down pool of all things, and no matter how much time Matt devotes to studying it, he just can’t figure out _how the water is suspended like that_ , though he knows _someone_ has been using it no problem, judging by the pair of swim trunks laying discarded on the arm of a chair.

 

He spends his days slowly acclimating to life aboard the castleship, familiarizing himself with the day-to-day routine and painstakingly pulling himself out of the _lone-wolf_ persona, the _me-against-the-world_ mindset he’s had to take on to protect himself for the last too-many months, and he spends his night-cycles learning more about his new housemates (castleshipmates?) from his expeditions than he thinks he ever could by simply talking to them.

 

He and Shiro don’t talk much. At all, really.

 

And sleep is still elusive as ever.

 

-x-

 

It’s during one such very late night-cycle excursion that he realizes he’s perhaps not the only one missing out on beauty sleep.

 

His thoughts are more tumultuous than usual, spinning round and round more chaotically than even the half-destroyed Galran fighter-class ship he’d once commandeered (read: stolen) in order to help rescue a colony of Balmerans.

 

He thinks of Te-osh, compassionate and strong and unwavering in her defense of him, always sharing stories of the hot desert storms on Kythra and the family she’d left there to protect, and how the last time he’d seen her was _months_ before her death. He thinks of her last words that Pidge had shared with him, the agonizing and inescapable truth that he’d never see her again, that her _family_ would never see her again, would possibly never even know that she’d died doing her part in the fight against the Galran Empire. He thinks of the kindness in her eyes and the laughter in her voice even as she kicked his ass over and over in an attempt to teach him the basics of weaponry and self-defense, and he imagines he can feel the dryness and warmth of her desert home in the memory of her gentle embrace.

 

He tries not to think of Mar’tzoïd, always steady and calm, saving him from death when the wound in his leg infected and spread, saving his skin when he talked back to the Galra prison guards one too many times, saving his life more times than he even knows. The wound of their absence is an old one, one of the first he’d received after Shiro and his father, gnarled and knotted and scarred over, and he feels the ache of their loss deep in every bone, down to the very core of himself.

 

He distracts himself from thinking of Shiro. He’s not ready to tear off that scab quite yet, not ready for the hot mix of pain and confusion and _hurt_ he knows is festering underneath, just a hair’s breadth away from boiling over and consuming him.

 

A sharp burst of laughter breaks through his melancholy mental meanderings, and he blinks around at his surroundings, barely recognizing where he is despite his newfound extensive knowledge of the castleship’s layout. He follows the sound curiously and reaches what he’s pretty sure is some sort of observation deck. A soft murmur of sound confirms the end of his trek, and he pokes his head through the partly-open doorway cautiously.

 

He’s somehow unsurprised to find Lance, slumped on the floor with his back resting against the large observation window spanning two whole sides of the room. He’s sitting cross-legged, cradling the same communication device from before in his lap, head tilted back against the glass of the window, eyes closed and a small smile on his face.

 

“I can’t _believe_ you,” Lance is saying, quiet but no less enthusiastic for it. “Everyone’s just going to think I made it all up if I tell them Kolivan slipped and fell on his ass during that mission.”

 

A small chuckle echoes from the device. _“Why do you think I told you?”_ the voice on the other end asks, dryly amused. Matt’s pretty sure he knows who it is by now.

 

Lance’s eyes pop open wide, and he gasps in mock outrage. “You son of a gun, you did that on _purpose_ ,” he complains without any ire, grinning cheerily.

 

_“Duh.”_

 

Matt watches as Lance turns his grin down to the device held delicately between long fingers. “We miss you, you know,” he says, and bites down on his lip in the next instant, grin fading.

 

There’s a long pause. _“I know,”_ the absent Keith finally replies. _“But this—this is important too. You get that, right? It—it’s_ important _.”_

 

“I know,” Lance says in a voice barely there, and Matt knows he’s intruding on this moment, knows it’s just for the two of them—and yet he can’t look away from the sorrow on Lance’s face, can’t make his feet take him far and away from conversations he shouldn’t be privy to. “Trust me, I know. It’s just…” Lance sighs, fingers fidgeting with the communicator, tugging on the cuffs of his ever-present jacket, flitting in a rhythmless _tap-tap-tap_ on his denim-clad knee, always in motion, never stopping. “It’s not the same here, without you.”

 

 _“Yeah.”_ There’s another pause, then the rough clearing of a throat. _“How’s Shiro?”_

 

Lance snorts, and the skin of his knuckles tightens, whitens with pressure. “How do you think?” His voice is harsher than Matt’s ever heard it, and the unease in his chest expands and settles over him like a second skin, cloying and oppressive.

 

_“I should talk to him.”_

 

“It won’t do any good, you know it won’t.”

 

_“You’re his right hand, Lance. He needs to listen to you.”_

 

“I know, I know.” Lance sighs, long and drawn out, and raises a hand to rake messily through his hair. “But it’ll work itself out—it has to. Don’t you worry about me.”

 

 _“I wasn’t worried,”_ comes the instantaneous reply, and Lance grins knowingly like he just caught the other in a lie. _“I was just—”_

 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re just a big ol’ softie,” Lance interrupts. “Your secret’s safe with me, samurai.”

 

_“Shut up.”_

 

“Yeah? Why don’t you come over here and make me?”

 

This pause is longer than the previous two combined, and even Matt can feel the weight of it, hard and heavy with a thousand unsaid words. Lance’s shoulders droop and so does his expression, lips firming unhappily.

 

 _“Lance—”_ The shrill blaring of an alarm from his side of the connection interrupts whatever Keith had been planning on saying, and he cuts off with a frustrated groan. _“I have to go,”_ he says unnecessarily.

 

Lance smiles, but it’s a sad thing, small and tired. “Yeah, I know. Gotta go be a badass.”

 

_“I’ll call you when I get back?”_

 

“Whenever you can.”

 

 _“I will. I…”_ Another pause, heedless of the insistent alarm. _“Take care of yourself, Lance. Please.”_

 

“Stay safe, Keith,” Lance whispers, and he ends the connection without waiting for a reply, swiping a hand under his eyes with an angry huff.

 

Matt closes his eyes against the intimacy of the moment and backs away from the doorway as quietly as he’s able, adding his presence here to the list of things he’ll never tell Lance.

 

-x-

 

Three night-cycles later (or _quintants_ , as he’s learned the Altean equivalent for days is) he happens upon the same observation deck during his wanderings. Lance is also there again, communicator clutched tightly in one hand, the other pressed against the glass separating him from the universe beyond, staring out at the myriad stars and planets and swirls of cosmic dust and debris with a look almost like hunger on his face.

 

Matt steps loudly into the room, so as not to startle him. “Hey,” he calls out, and Lance jumps anyway, gasping and turning so fast he stumbles back into the window with a hollow _thunk_.

 

“ _Quiznak_ , warn a guy next time,” he grumbles, but he smiles at Matt all the same.

 

“Come here often?” Matt jokes weakly. He ambles across the room to join Lance, jostling his shoulder good-naturedly.

 

“Only on the days I can’t sleep—which is pretty much any day ending in _y_ ,” Lance says, frighteningly honest.

 

Matt winces a little. “Hey,” he tries, “we’re in _space_. Who’s to say any of the days, or quintants or whatever, actually end in _y_?”

 

Lance huffs out a laugh, turning his eyes back to the stars. “You’ve got a point there,” he murmurs. He sounds better than he did a second ago, though, so Matt will take what he can get. “What about you?”

 

Matt laughs a little too. “Same, I guess. Hard to sleep when your brain just won’t turn off.”

 

Lance nods in agreement, lips twisting with empathy.

 

They stand in silent solidarity for a few minutes before Matt decides to take a risk, nodding at the communicator Lance is still holding against his chest. “Waiting on a call?”

 

Lance starts, staring at the device like he’d forgotten about it. “I—yeah, I am.” He sighs resignedly. “Thought that was Hunk at the door the other night, he’s usually the nosy one around here.”

 

“Sorry,” Matt says genuinely—and he really is.

 

Lance waves it away. “No big. Not like it’s some big secret, or anything.”

 

“It was still private,” Matt says anyway, and then, completely undoing any apology with his nosiness, asks, “Are you and he…?”

 

Lance grins, small and wry. “Kind of hard to ‘be’ anything when you’re thousands and thousands of star systems away from each other,” he points out.

 

Matt hums in acknowledgement. “You sounded close,” he counters idly. A star burns close by, maybe only a light year or two away, and Matt stares resolutely, refuses to tear his gaze away even as it burns brightly and leaves a blaze of brilliance scorching behind his eyelids.

 

“We are,” Lance says simply. “When Shiro—when he disappeared, Keith was a mess. I mean, we all were, but Keith even more so. And when he ended up taking over as the Black Paladin… well. He needed the support, and I needed to be the one to support him, you know?” He shrugs a little. “We made it work.”

 

“And what about after he left?” Lance flinches a little, and Matt feels bad, he really does, but the curiosity is _burning_ away at him. “You didn’t go back to the Blue Lion?”

 

“No way,” Lance says immediately, “I wasn’t about to take Blue away from Allura, _no way_. I couldn’t do that to her.”

 

Matt is _fascinated_ despite himself—he’s always been a scientist at heart, no matter how broken down and battle weary he’s become, and the magicky science behind the Voltron Lions is unlike _anything_ he’s ever seen or heard of before, even including everything he’s experienced in the last couple of years.

 

“So you’re stuck with the Red Lion?”

 

Lance instantly looks horrified. “Of course not! I’m not _stuck with her_ —I love Red, okay, it’s just a different kind of love than with Blue! They’re both amazing girls.” He turns accusatory eyes towards Matt, who holds his hands up in supplication.

 

“Sorry,” he says again, this time with a smile. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

 

Lance peers at him a moment longer before nodding, apparently mollified. “Besides, Allura’s a _way_ better Blue Paladin than I ever was.” His mouth twists, something self-deprecating in his expression.

 

“Sounds like you’re a pretty damn good Red Paladin,” Matt returns, and he nudges his shoulder against Lance’s again.

 

“Mmm.” Lance leans heavily into the contact, silent for another long moment before speaking again. “You’re a good big brother, you know? Remind me of mine.”

 

“Your brother?”

 

“Yeah. My older one, anyway. Anton.”

 

“How many siblings do you _have_?”

 

“Five,” Lance says, grinning at Matt’s wide eyes. “There’s Jackie, I told you about her already, then Anton, then me, then Elaine, and then the twins, Cooper and Alicia.”

 

“Christ,” Matt mutters, and Lance laughs at him, bright and easy.

 

“I miss them,” he says plainly, and his eyes are bright with unshed tears. “It was always so _loud_ at home. I always used to want peace and quiet, but being out here is… it’s too quiet, now. And lonely.”

 

“I know what you mean,” Matt says. “Did Pidge ever tell you about the time I tried to take her back to the hospital because I decided I hated having a little sister?”

 

Lance bursts into laughter, the sound of it echoing in the room. “When I was eight, I cut the hair off all my little sister’s dolls because she told me she’d rather play with them than play outside with me,” he confides, and Matt joins him in his laughter. It sounds like just the kind of hilariously petty thing Pidge would have done to _him_ , if he’d had dolls.

 

“I miss them _so much_ ,” Lance says again, painful and endearingly earnest. “I miss them so much it hurts too much to think about, but… I miss Keith more.” His voice lowers to an almost-whisper, agonized. “Does that—am I a bad person, for feeling like this?”

 

Matt wraps an arm around him in response, tugging him in close. Lance lets himself be pulled in, wrapping his arms around Matt tightly in return, burrowing his head in Matt’s shoulder as he breathes shakily.

 

“I miss my dad,” Matt whispers. “I miss my mom, I miss her so much, and I miss my freakin’ _dog_ , but—” his voice catches on nothing, breaks. “I don’t even know if my dad is still _alive_.”

 

Lance’s voice is a wreck when he speaks. “ _Coño_ , Matt—”

 

Matt shakes his head. “Not the point. I miss my family like _crazy_ , but…” He swallows roughly, burying his face into Lance’s hair because it’s easier this way, easier to say the words if he can’t see the world around him react to them. “When I was still a prisoner, there was this guy—well, not a guy, their race doesn’t really do genders—Mar’tzoïd, their name was Mar’tzoïd. Martzy, they said I could call them.” Matt clears his throat, and it feels like laser fire cutting into his larynx. “They were my cellmate, and they were basically the only reason I’m still alive now. They kept me alive when the injury on my leg got infected, they stopped me from angering the guards too much, they even… Christ, they even _hugged me_ if I needed it, even though they didn’t really _do_ physical affection like we do.” The rush of tears burn at the corners of his eyes, and he blinks them away angrily.

 

Lance tightens his grip around Matt’s middle. Matt feels like he’s being supported more than actually doing the supporting now, but he can’t bring himself to break the embrace. “What happened to them?” His voice is even quieter than Matt’s.

 

“They died,” Matt says bluntly. “We almost didn’t make it out—something went wrong, their intel was bad, I don’t know. Martzy—there was huge group of guards between us and our only exit, and Martzy… they were from Phreluxi, and they were big, I don’t know if you know about Phreluxians but they’re humongous, six arms, four eyes, kinda small heads?”

 

“With giant feathers on their backs, right? Kind of hard to forget.”

 

“Yeah, with the giant fucking feathers.” Matt laughs, and the sound of it is watery and thick in his throat. The scar across his face burns with phantom pain at the memory. “They distracted the Galra, held ’em all off while the rest of us escaped.”

 

“Shit.”

 

“Yeah… yeah.” Matt blinks again, so hard spots dance across his vision. “Don’t get me wrong, I miss my parents, and I missed Katie so much, but… I miss Martzy, I miss them more than _anything_.”

 

The tears start to fall, hot against his cheeks, soaking into Lance’s hair.

 

Matt doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but by the time his tears have finally stopped and the moisture on his face has dried, his legs are shaking from standing so long, his arms aching from the pressure of the grip neither of them have let up on. By some wordless agreement they sink down to the floor in tandem, arms still wrapped around each other, unwilling to break contact just yet. They sit there for another long while, comforting and being comforted in return, watching the lazy drag of the universe before them, just outside their reach.

 

“We’re both kind of a mess, aren’t we?” Lance finally says, voice scratchy, and Matt laughs, choked out and hoarse.

 

“We really are,” he croaks. “Seems to be the norm around here though, so I’m not worried if you’re not.”

 

It’s Lance’s turn to laugh and he does, a gasping little chuckle with a slight edge of hysteria Matt is intimately familiar with. “Not worried at all,” he says, words muffled against Matt’s chest.

 

“Yeah.” Matt leans his weight into Lance’s, resting his head atop the other’s. “It’s gonna be okay, you know. Eventually.”

 

“Eventually,” Lance agrees in a murmur, and the word sounds more at peace than any other he’s spoken tonight.

 

The peace spreads over Matt too—thin and fleeting, maybe, in the face of their reality full of violence and war and nightmares and the unforgiving, unending void, but solid and real and, in this moment, unbelievably _warm_. He stares out at the endless black surrounding them, the stars and the planets and the vast and infinite cosmos around them, and for once he doesn’t feel quite so insignificant.

 

“Eventually,” Matt says again, and he smiles.

 

-x-

**Author's Note:**

> i'm maybe not 100% happy with the ending, but this has been sitting on my drive for TOO LONG NOW so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> *i have this silly headcanon that all the measurements of time the paladins have learned from allura and coran are altean units that were pretty much lost with the planet's destruction, so they're the only ones who actually know what they mean when they say things like dobosh and varga and quintant lol
> 
> questions, comments and love all appreciated, and i'm on [tumblr](http://that-pumpkinspicewhitegirl.tumblr.com) if you wanna come scream about this garbage fandom with me :)


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